The Story of our Health Message

The Denver Banker Is Impressed

This small example of unusual integrity impressed the Denver banker. Some years later he and his wife were again spending the winter in southern California, this time at the Hotel del Coronado across the bay from San Diego. Once more Mr. Porter came down with a heavy cold and, remembering the previous experience in a Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium, inquired if such an institution existed in the vicinity of San Diego. He was referred to the Paradise Valley Sanitarium and entered as a patient. Here he found the same sort of people he had met at the Glendale Sanitarium. His cold responded to the hydrotherapy treatments, and his soul responded to the atmosphere and the environment. SHM 414.3

He later told the story of how each day he would open the door of his room just a crack so that he could peek through into the room across the hall where resided an old gentleman suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Daily he watched a young student nurse feed this old man and noticed the unfailing kindness of the student nurse, who never knew that her tender care was watched. SHM 415.1

Mrs. Porter later joined her husband in the sanitarium. The inarticulate influence of the institution and its many workers prepared the soil of the heart for the planting of the good seed of gratitude, about to spring up and bear fruit. The sanitarium sojourn ended, the bill was paid, and the patients returned first to Coronado and later to Denver. SHM 415.2

Bookkeeping was then done by hand, and the patients’ journal was balanced at the end of each week. The following weekend, however, the books did not balance. A search for the error eventually led to Mr. Porter’s account and revealed that he had been overcharged forty-five cents. The sanitarium credit office promptly sent a check for forty-five cents with a letter of explanation and apology. Shortly thereafter they received the following reply from Mr. Porter: SHM 415.3

Fby. 12th, 1928 SHM 415.4

Dear Sir:
Your letter of 10th with check for 45 cents received, and I thank you for it and return it to you for credit your general fund. I feel I have underpaid you all for your kind and careful treatment and attention, and I owe you all a debt of gratitude for the kind consideration while with you. Mrs. Porter and I are well, and I am gaining strength daily. With our regards and best wishes to you all. SHM 415.5

Yours sincerely, SHM 416.1

/s/ H. M. Porter SHM 416.2

The letter was acknowledged and forgotten; the account in the sanitarium office was closed and filed. SHM 416.3